To wonder if anyone else will admit to being a soap dodger?

[blueberrycoconut]

I often can’t be arsed. Dh has to prompt me. Anyone else?

You will feel better about yourself and life if you try to look after your most basic needs. These include basic hygiene and basic grooming.

@Sheldonoscopy - there’s no age limit on accepting help when you need it - I hope things improve for you

Some people sweat lots like me and two soapy showers are a daily necessity.

If you go on Philip Kingsley's trichology website, they advocate washing hair every day as it hangs on to pollution, general dirt and grot.

I am always horrified by the stench of unwashed vagina when I have to queue up in the ladies and then use a warm fetid cubicle.

As long as you both are generally clean people, I can’t understand the obessesion with bathing because of sex.

The whole point was if you don't wash regularly you are not generally clean.

Blueberry - you're not disgusting and in normal weather and with deodorant you won't smell. (Though washing your hands is important). The OCD washing thing - caught from the US - of constant washing strips the skin and hair of natural oils and micro-biology which is not good for you. The amount of chemicals people are pouring over their skins - (tested on animals and doing damage to the water supply and environment - just see the damage cosmetic wipes are doing to the oceans!) - does damage to long term skin health and cultures, and may contain allergens. They then demand further products to be added to the skin to replace the natural oils removed by all the washing. Much of this hyper vigilance has been driven by the cosmetics industry.

I don't like people who smell and don't take care of their personal hygiene but I also think many people are overly obsessed and manipulated by the cosmetics and pharmaceuticals industry. Many many years ago I worked on a public health and hygiene research project for a short while and saw the impact on psoriasis, eczema, allergies and immunology.

Good for you OP for your honesty.

I have v long hair and have trained it over a lifetime to only need washing every 10 days. It is thick, glossy healthy and I often receive comments.

I have similar hair and I wash it every day.

I am in my 40s and most my age can't grow their hair. It's because they wash it too much.

I have NEVER heard of that in my life

Blueberrycoconut, I think you're taking all of this stick very well, with humour. Some posters seem to be vicious for the hell of it, so good on you for going with the flow.

Why do you have shoulder-length hair? That must be so difficult to maintain and keep stink-free? Why not cut it to an easier length?

I don't shower every Sunday if I'm really hungover. My dh laughs at me cause it's the first thing he does. Up and in the shower. But if I'm really hungover I can't bear it.

That's the only day I don't shower. Other than that I feel absolutely disgusting if I don't. It literally takes 5 mins.

Lol since when do you smell when ovulating? Since I've reached a certain age, alllll kinds of crazy shit happens when I ovulate

Not going to lie, when I was pregnant I was so exhausted (hyperemesis) that 4 times a week was a good week for me. I washed my hands though, after toilet, vomming, before and after food prep (hah), before and after eating (double hah), after touching people etc.

4 times a week isn't awful, but you need to wash your hands. That's basic hygiene And probably invest in some batiste

I love a good daily wash though. Feeling fresh and new is good for my morale and motivation.

I have long thick wavy (frizzy with afro tendencies thanks to my heritage!) hair that I wash every 3-4 days. So about twice a week.
I shower and wash my body every day thanks to dp fitting a water softener to the... I don’t know, water tank?! I have eczema and my skin dries out horribly when we go anywhere else and I shower daily but at home the water is so much nicer to my skin now.
Can’t beat a daily shower, first thing before work. I’ll often have a bath in the evenings too, more for relaxing than the need to get clean again. The best thing I ever did was buy a shower cap. I look ridiculous but my hair doesn’t go frizzy with the moisture in the air of the bathroom.

I don’t have the need or the time to wash/dry/straighten my hair every morning before work, it takes an hour and a half just to deal with my hair and I’m not waking up that much earlier every day! Luckily my hair isn’t greasy, it’s quite dry so I can do without the daily shampooing.

I wash my hands a lot, every time I go to the loo (this is surely normal??) and before handling food obviously. And then any time I think they need a wash.

OP, washing every other day might be enough for you but if your OH is mentioning it, you need to do it more often.

I think dirty hair is a personal bugbear of mine. I've had friends whose hair/scalp you can smell when they're close (very specific, stomach-churning odour, hair) and you can see when the roots are starting to get greasy. It's really off-putting.

Why would anyone have a length/style of hair that they can't maintain and keep clean? Hair doesn't have to be straightened, after all!

I’ve got a small child. Wash face/feet/pits/bits every day, sometimes sink, sometimes bath or shower. I probably wash my hair every 10 days to 2 weeks, but it’s thick and long (a good few inches past my bra strap) so doesn’t get greasy quickly, and I put it up out of the way for dirty jobs.

I do wash my hands after nappy changes, toilet and before cooking: I’m quite careful about that.

I disagree that bad childhood habits run into adulthood. I was born in 1979, and in my family the two children and two parents had a bath once a week on a Sunday night in the same minging bathwater! We weren't taught to wash our hands after the loo or before eating either. Horrible.

As an adult pushing 40, I shower daily which of course including hair wash and wouldn't dream of not keeping my hands spotless.

Of course hair doesn’t need to be straightened, but unless I want to start treating my hair as actual Afro hair, it gets done when I have the time.
Straightening it let’s me go to work looking tidy and smart.
My hair doesn’t smell or look greasy (I know some people with greasy hair find it impossible to believe that not everyone gets a sweaty greasy scalp every day but it’s actually true!), and yes, I do look in a mirror. I could actually leave it longer but wouldn’t.
A lot of people with very curly hair don’t wash their hair daily. Or brush it!

Four times a week is OK if you aren't smelly and your hair isn't gross.

I will sometimes skip a day or just have a quick wash at the sink (I really hate showers). However, if my husband told me I needed a wash I would know I needed to wash more and I would be embarrassed.

I don't shower every day (maybe 4-5 times a week), don't feel I need to, I don't really get sweaty (unless it's really hot or I wear synthetics) and it seems like a waste of water - plus I've started to feel uneasy about putting so many chemicals on my body / hair / down the drain. If I had an amazing shower I'd probably use it more admittedly - mine's quite weak so it takes longer.

The OP could dispense with head hair altogether. Plan?

But surely most of us share a bed with another human and their smells too?
DH smells lovely when he leaves the house due to showering off the intermingled bodies that are us... it's common courtesy surely?

I'm sorry, but this is gross, only taking action when your DH tells you that you smell. I would be mortified if my DH ever had to tell me that I smelt bad. And as for not washing your hands after doing a wee, yuck! I'm constantly reminding my DDs to wash their hands, but surely you should know better as a grown woman and a mum. What a bad example you're giving your DC.

RoseWhiteTips why would they do that? They smell lovely and hair is self-cleaning

Am paranoid about offending people with my personal odour yet actually really smelly people never ever think they do.

The reason so many women died in childbirth up to mid Victorian times was basic hand washing hygiene OP. Once Dr's started washing their hands, infection & death rates dived. While of course you aren't a Dr, it does kind of explain why hand washing might be a good thing to start doing.

Bouledeneige. Those of us who wash our bodies and hands regularly have not been 'infected' by some sort of 'OCD virus' from the USA.

OCD is a serious mental health condition that can cause misery to the sufferer and in the vast majority of cases has nothing whatsoever to do with washing.

Those people suffering from OCD whose symptoms include the need to wash excessively will frequently scrub their skin raw, often to the extent of causing bleeding. Is that really what you're talking about in your post?

You're quite gross! It's unnatural not to want to be clean.

The only times I've been unclean is when severely depressed and tbh it makes me more depressed so a vicious circle.

However you don't sound as though you are depressive. Just dirty.

oh get over yourself Rebecca.